Well, the mystery may be over. A woman who said her name was, in fact, Ellie Light called this morning into the radio show of Michael Smerconish, a national talker based in Philadelphia who has been friendly to Obama, to clear things up.

"I'm only me," she said, identifying herself as a traveling nurse who works for 13-week stretches at hospitals around the country, and whose primary residence is in Southern California.

"I need to own up – I did misrepresent my home town in some places," Light told Smerconish. Her logic in faking the addresses is one familiar to advocacy groups: "If I thought it was written by a neighbor of mine, I would give it more credence."

But according to Patterico, who's done yeoman work on this story since it broke, Ellie's claimed residency in 18 different states. Even if we accept her "13-week stretches" around the country claim, that would be at the most 4 states, and since her letter amounts to nothing more than whining that we aren't giving Obama enough time, I assume her letters only started popping up after November (and the Democratic losses in New Jersey and Virginia).

And I doubt very strongly that she's really doing this 13-week rotation to begin with, or that she's the actual letter writer. And as Patterico points out, the issue is not who Ellie Light is, it's why she was able to fool so many editors around the country. The local paper here requires letter writers to include a phone number and always calls before running one of my letters.